Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
THE VOC EINLEITUNG APPROACH GOES EAST<br />
and deteriorating living conditions made<br />
cooperation between domestic actors more<br />
difficult. Intense struggle among different<br />
domestic actors or ethnic groups, which also<br />
produced violence (e.g. in Yugoslavia), did not<br />
leave room for stability and a complementary<br />
institutional system. In war-torn countries<br />
(e.g. Azerbaijan, Georgia) and countries with<br />
high concentrations of political power (e.g.<br />
Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyz Republic),<br />
powerful domestic groups actively influenced<br />
institutional reforms (see World Bank 2002, p.<br />
106). Influence of such actors is nothing bad,<br />
as long as the state remains powerful enough<br />
and will not be captured by powerful internal<br />
business groups or oligarchs, who seek to extract<br />
rents from the state. The composite index<br />
of state capture 20 provides snapshot evidence<br />
that in the year 1999 the influence of firms on<br />
institutional and policy reforms was on average<br />
more pronounced in SEE and the CIS as<br />
compared to CEB (see table 4).<br />
Table 4. Regional average of state capture among transition economies in 1999<br />
CIS AM AZ BY GG KZ KG MD RU UA UZ<br />
regional<br />
average<br />
state capture index 7 41 8 24 12 29 37 32 32 6 22.8<br />
SEE ALB BG HR RO<br />
state capture index 16 28 27 21 23<br />
CEB CZ EE HU LV LT SK SI PL<br />
state capture index 11 10 7 30 11 24 7 12 14<br />
Source: Calculations based on Hellman./Jones/Kaufmann, 2000, p. 9.<br />
Note: The index is constructed as the average proportion of firms responding that their businesses are directly affected by private payments<br />
made to public officials to influence decision making in one or more of the following six institutions: parliament, the executive<br />
apparatus, the criminal courts, the civil courts, the central bank, and political parties (Hellman/Kaumann 2001).<br />
While dealing with institutional<br />
change and institutional complementarity<br />
during transition, ex-<br />
Seite Page page 26<br />
ternal actors should be taken into<br />
account. Post-communist institution<br />
building has been subject to pressure<br />
from Western consultants, international organizations<br />
(IMF, World Bank, USAID),<br />
multinational corporations and foreign banks.<br />
The EU was particularly important for<br />
institutional reforms. 21 Although international<br />
actors initially produced institutional and<br />
policy similarities (best practices), at the same<br />
time multiple conditionalities and interests<br />
hindered coherent institutional strategies, as<br />
well. Bartlett shows, for instance, that former